“Time is passing,” Ruth informed me on the phone when I told her about my first test results, the ones which led to the second mammogram. And then the second mammogram, which led to this third, more invasive, drawn-out testing to see if I have cancer.

When I told my sister about the first test results I hoped it would open her eyes a little, that she would understand that I, too, have problems and that it isn’t as easy as she thinks for me to help our parents as much as I do. “It’s probably your own fault,” Ruth said instead. “From drinking too much coffee or something. You must have done something to cause this.” I could hear that Ruth was trying not to cry, anger being easier than fear and cruelty easier than vulnerability. But that didn’t mean she was going to change her view of me.

Ever since our father took a pot of coffee and poured it on a plate and was subsequently diagnosed, everything has been my fault. Now that our mother is having problems with her right eye, Ruth has turned her panic against me.

“You live closer. You’re right there, so why can’t you be their caregiver?” Ruth demands. Ruth would have made better choices if she’d been born first, she always tells me. I should have been the youngest, the reckless and irresponsible one. I’ve even robbed Ruth of her place in the family.

She thinks Saul should have been given up for adoption. His father is a loser, she’ll say when she’s upset. Your boyfriend. She never even called him my partner when he was alive. Ruth said once that it was reprehensible for us to reproduce. We had bad genes. Our genetic legacy was one of curses.

Even though our mother rarely calls Ruth for help, Ruth is totally convinced she’s doing everything on her own. “Why can’t they call you,” she says, “when there’s trouble?”

“They do. I drive over there and Saul sits in the car in his pyjamas.”

“How hard can it be to be a single parent?”

No matter how often it’s explained to her that I do as much as she does, Ruth denies it. Her husband views this as how Ruth copes with loss, through a prism of rage.

Thinking about Ruth makes me feel sick. But it could be the drugs.

It was a week before this third testing when my mother called me about her eyesight problem. I drove to my parents’ house to find that Ruth was already there. She had arrived for an unannounced visit. She’d taken a day off and come out to the country to buy some wool for her new rug-hooking hobby.

They didn’t hear me come in. I stood in the porch. Ruth was on a roll to my mother, who couldn’t get a word in: “Crazy Daisy is too indulgent, Mum, you know this. I work full-time in a real job as a physiotherapist, and I have a husband. He’s a lawyer. People depend on us. People with actual problems. Middle-aged people should be independent. What is wrong with Daisy? How can we even be related?